This invention relates to a connector for use in various kinds of electronic and electric equipment and devices of hard disk drives (HDD), servers and personal computers, and more particularly to a connector capable of preventing unintended deformation of contacts when connecting a mating connector.
Such connectors serve to connect various kinds of electronic and electric equipment and devices of hard disk drivers (HDD), servers and personal computers to exchange mutually signals between the electronic and electric equipment and devices. For this purpose, the connector is mounted on a substrate, panel or the like so as to be connected to a mating connector.
In order to achieve such a purpose, generally the connector at least comprises contacts adapted to contact the mating connector, and a housing for holding the contacts. For fitting with the mating connector, the connector includes a fitting portion whose size may be determined by dimensional relation to the mating connector and S-ATA and SAS standards. According to the S-ATA and SAS standards, the thickness of the fitting portion of the housing is determined as 0.6 to 0.7 mm.
The contacts each include a contact portion at one end adapted to contact a connecting object, a connection portion at the other end to be connected to a substrate or the like, and between the contact portion and the connection portion a fixed portion to be arranged and held in the housing. The contact portion is held in the housing to be displaceable relative to the fixed portion as a fulcrum in a cantilevered manner. These are typical constructions of the connectors, for which prior art patent literatures will not be cited here.
Recently, there has been a strong need for miniaturization of connectors. In the case that contacts are supported in the cantilevered manner as described above and a thickness of the fitting portion of the housing is only 0.6 to 0.7 mm, it would be impossible to ensure sufficient contact pressures because sufficient displacement of contact portions of the contacts cannot be achieved within such a small thickness of the fitting portion, and further the contacts would tend to be collapsed or deformed to an excessive extent, resulting in a defective or failed connection.
Moreover, if the displacement of the contacts is restrained in a manner to avoid their excessive deformation, no sufficient contact pressure can be obtained, thereby causing a defective connection.